


Piter FM

by glitterpile



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Radio, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-14 10:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14767871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterpile/pseuds/glitterpile
Summary: But he’s just a DJ on the radio // Viktor talks too much with an unreasonably nice voice and knows an unseemly number of languages, while Yuuri is just trying to learn Russian and settle into Saint Petersburg // A series of ridiculous coincidences, the likelihood of which might seem unfathomably small.Translated from Russian.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Питер FM](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9198929) by [Evilfairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilfairy/pseuds/Evilfairy). 



> Author’s notes: I’m pretty bad with languages, even though I studied English fair and square for 13 years, plus French for four years. But.  
> In any case, I don’t know anything about Piter, nor radio, nor languages  
> About the name - it suddenly hit me that it would be super fun to write a story about a radio presenter, and the story is set in Piter, and so xDDD I fell upon the name without thinking about it. About the film I only have vague memories and a sense of disappointment with the ending. That’s why I wrote roughly the same thing xD I know that such a radio station actually exists, but let’s pretend that it doesn’t. It’s not like you listen to radio often, right?
> 
> Translator’s notes: St. Petersburg locals shorten the name of the city to “Piter”. Hence the name.

Yuuri closes his eyes and tries to shut out the outside world. His headphones are playing some sort of nightmarish music, he can’t even pick out the words, and the melody seems to be trying to tear his very soul to shreds, but choosing something else isn’t an option: pulling out his phone, to turn off the radio or change stations, is impossible. The train carriage is packed so tight that he can hardly breathe, and either today is unusual, or he has simply been lucky enough until now to not experience this crush. The song at this point becomes completely indistinguishable from the cries of a tortured animal, and Yuuri, pushing against the surrounding mass of people, forces his hand towards his pocket and blindly scrolls to a different station.

“… member! And what am I supposed to think? No, really? Any normal person would only think of one thing.”

Yuuri’s heart sinks, but he’s already pulled out his hand, so reaching back again feels too awkward at this point. He doesn’t like pushing on others, and definitely isn’t keen on initiating physical contact with strangers. That’s why he continues listening – it’s conversational Russian speech, what could be better?

“Stop trying to force your mathematics on me! I’m in the social sciences! A top notch translator, by the way, I’m very proud of that. I graduated summa cum laude, you know? Meanwhile he’s continuing to push his set membership mumbo jumbo onto me. So then I tell him: ‘Yurochka, go take a walk’. In French, of course. I’m a translator with honours, after all. But he, the baby punk, ne parles in French. And looks at me like I’m a fool. Like, are you, Vitya, planning on helping me with my English homework? And it’s as if I’m taking up space in his apartment, and not the other way around.”

The radio host has a pleasant voice, although as of yet it’s hard to say what the point is of this passionate monologue about his personal life. But Yuuri is drawn in and away from the pushing, the heat and the cacophony of smells. The voice is oddly musical.

“And just a reminder that we have a regular segment called “Dumb situations”, where you can share a story about how you ended up in an awkward spot or how you managed to put someone else there. Doesn’t matter which way. What does matter is that we’ll be amused, as long as your story doesn’t end up like mine. With you is Viktor Nikiforov, Piter FM, and here’s a random song from my playlist. Wow, better get your ears ready for this one.”

And the host – Viktor – turns on some actual music. It’s a Russian song, with an uncomplicated melody, and the words seem to repeat a lot. Pop music, Yuuri thinks. Viktor has loaded up some sort of pop song. Well, not very impressive, but at least he can make out the lyrics.

Yuuri steps out of the train at his station, turns off the radio and smiles up at the blue sky.

***

The Russian language turned out to be a tough nut to crack. It’s not as if Yuuri expected otherwise, but even after two whole years he didn’t talk very well, and there was no point even thinking about being able to write without errors. To be fair, reading and picking up on verbal speech was going somewhat better, despite the lack of practice. And that was exactly why his professor sent him to Russia to a colleague - Lilia Baranovskaya.

Lilia was a scary woman.

“So, how is your article going?” she asks in Russian. Lilia always spoke in Russian and equally demanded answers in the “great and powerful” language. Yuuri’s article isn’t exactly getting very far, but at least it’s definitely in progress.

“I think I will soon finish the first part,” he replies uncertainly, knowing that he’s butchered the pronunciation. But Lilia doesn’t even wince. Actually, Yuuri wouldn’t be having any problems with the article if he had been writing it in English or Japanese. But he was writing it in Russian, which was absolutely dreadful.

“Is it still hard to write?”

“A bit,” agrees Yuuri, even though the grammar is throwing him into despair. Into a deep, endless despair. And Lilia spends several hours with him at a time, almost like with a child, not letting him go until they reach some sort of success. But that doesn’t change the fact that it feels to Yuuri that he is simply not capable of learning this language. “I’m trying to talk to people, listen to Russian conversations, read Russian books. But there are not many people like you around.”

Lilia rubs at the bridge of her nose. Yuuri feels guilty. It’s his third month in St. Petersburg and his usage has improved significantly. Most of it thanks to talking to Lilia and to her advice. It was actually on her tip that he started listening to the radio – so much chatter is constantly pouring into his ears now. It’s like some sort of continuous speech recognition test. Initially Yuuri was on the fence, but now he gets it – it’s helping. Although not with the grammar. But it’s something.

“Alright,” she finally says. “Today let’s talk about noun cases again, and then I’ll send you off. Next Thursday I expect the first part of your article. And tomorrow you have a lecture with our students.”

Yuuri was the lecturer. It was a surprise when Lilia suggested it to him as a part time job. Yuuri was qualified enough to teach Japanese. Of course, not to Russians, but that seemed to be a minor issue. Because the most difficult part was to start talking to the students at all – they spoke Japanese poorly, while he was bad at Russian. But it seemed that they were all helping each other in the end.

These lectures were considered extracurriculars, and Yuuri was truly grateful that nobody was being forced into anything. Otherwise this would have been torturous for everyone. Like, for example, cases. God, Yuuri despised cases. They could all go to hell.

***

“He recently turned fifteen, he got himself hammered somewhere and then turned up at one AM. He is, as he claims, an adult. Yeah, sure. And I should have stayed silent, dear friends, but I decided to start lecturing him. Let me tell you, never try to teach some sense to drunk teenagers,” asserts the familiar voice. Yuuri remembers that he never changed the radio station. He doesn’t have any preferences, so he listens to everything available. The Russian soul is mysterious and confusing, and he can amply feel it through the endless gossip of the radio hosts. “Why does he act like that with me? In any case, friends, my name is Viktor Nikiforov, you’re listening to Piter FM, don’t switch off.”

The host loads an ad, and Yuuri thinks of switching to another station for a few seconds, but there are ads everywhere so it’s not like it will make a difference. Plus, Viktor has a very nice voice. Why not keep listening to him when the advertisement ends?

Yuuri decides to continue on foot, because the breeze is filled with that inexplicable feeling of springtime – the sun isn’t really visible, but it’s making an effort to pierce the clouds, and there hasn’t been any snow for a month, so there’s no slush to complain about either. It’s as if the air itself smells like changing times. At home, in Hasetsu, Yuuri loved to take walks, but that was a small town. Piter is huge. Piter is scary and oppressive. Yuuri isn’t fond of it. But at the moment it feels like he’s on the same wavelength as the city, and it’s making him feel good.

“Did you know that children grow particularly well in spring?” asks Viktor Nikiforov immediately, when the ad has barely finished. Yuuri doesn’t notice the switch, because there’s no intro to either the show itself, nor the name of the host. “I was just googling suggestions for living with an aggressive teenager, and Google decided to inform me of this fact. If I ever end up writing my memoirs, please remind me to include that fact. Actually, that’s funny. See, Yura’s birthday is in March.”

Yuuri definitely still has no idea who Viktor is talking about, but for some reason he’s interested. Maybe due to the genuine emotions carried in Viktor’s voice. Yuuri isn’t sure, but he does want to hear the rest. Or the beginning.

“The weather is wonderful outside. It’s April out there, no snow on the forecast, and you would expect “aprel’-aprel’, na dvore kapel’ ”, remember? Isn’t the snow only supposed to _start_ melting in April? I do so love the cold and the snow. It would be better to live in the Arctic. Or maybe in Antarctica? As a layman, I’m not actually sure where it would be better to live. What do you all think? You can call us and share your opinion. By the way, our website with our contact details is piterfm.ru. I’m going to put a song on now, and please don’t whine about it. Hmm. How about Brendon Urie, are you all young fans of panics and discos? Let’s go.” [1]

Yuuri has already heard this song, and there’s nothing interesting in it because it’s not in Russian, and he doesn’t give a hoot about English. He knows English perfectly well, thank you. It’s disappointing, but the radio rarely plays things that would suit him even seventy percent of the time, so he just gives up on that hope. Why stress over the little things? Better to make peace with the inevitable. Yuuri shoves his hands into his pockets and unwillingly admits that he likes the song.

“Aaah, I’d totally get into his pants. Urie’s, I mean,” proclaims Viktor, and Yuuri chokes on nothing. Because Urie is quite similar to Yuuri. And that sounds somewhat odd. “What do you think, is he attracted to blue eyed blondes? Because I am most assuredly a blue eyed blond. Yes, I know that he has a wife. And that she’s not blonde. But her eyes do seem to be blue. Or are they grey? This is important, because mine are blue. Ah, damn. I’m now completely despondent. But I’ve had a lot of people write in, and nobody wants to discuss the Arctic and Antarctica. Just one dude with the username Jade. Jade says that it’s better in Antarctica because there are penguins there. While we’re on the subject of penguins - as a child I adored ‘The Adventures of Lolo the Penguin’. You should definitely check it out.”

Yuuri smiles at this, because he also loved that animation. It’s partly Russian, partly Japanese, and simply great. Mari never liked it, but Yuuri loved it. Meanwhile, Viktor continues, because it seems that he can keep on talking about anything and everything.

“Everyone else wants me to keep talking about Yura. Let’s do a contest. The first person to call in live gets to pick our topic of discussion, and can ask any question they want. Although I can’t guarantee that I’ll answer. And if that person wants to talk about Yura, we’ll do it. Actually, he often listens to the radio and gets quite angry when I talk about him. But what can I do, if the audience are the ones asking for it? Right? And while I wait for a call, here’s some Yura.”

The [singer’s voice turns out to be strange](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc-4YyxoqW0), and her words are a little hard to make out because of it, but he likes the song. The chorus is particularly catchy, and Yuuri even starts to sing along about that same Yura and the “dura” who falls in love. His legs aren’t getting tired, and he feels relaxed. Even the sun is managing to peek through the clouds. For the first time in the two months he’s spent in Russia he doesn’t want to rush home, doesn’t feel the need to hide from the world. And all because of the strange Russian song. 

“We have Tanechka on the line. Tanechka, what would you like to chat about?” asks Viktor warmly.

“Tell us about Yura,” asks Tanechka in a thin little voice and utters some sort of shy squeak. “What does he look like?”

“Yura? He’s blonde,” sighs Viktor. “With green eyes. Gor-geous. But gay. We haven’t discussed it, but I can tell. Have I disappointed you, Tanechka?”

“You have,” she agrees. “But tell us something amusing about him.”

“Amusing,” Viktor sighs again. “It’s not that easy to think of something on the fly. Yura is obsessed with tigers. He even calls himself a tiger. Once he brought home an entire heap of things covered in tiger print from various market sales, he filled up my wardrobe as well as his. Ungrateful child. Doesn’t respect me at all. I’m old enough to be his father. Although, not really. He’s fifteen, while I’m not thirty yet, so it’s borderline. But he could afford to show me some more respect. Can’t stand the brat. I’m never going to have kids, if they all turn out like Yura.”

Yuuri smiles and walks into the dorms.

***

Gradually Yuuri finds out a lot more about Viktor, Piter FM and, of course, Yura. Viktor owns the radio station, and Viktor himself… Viktor is too eccentric an individual to run it effectively. He is both the producer and the director, regularly plays trashy music for his own personal taste and isn’t particularly bothered with the commercial side of things. Apart from him there are two other hosts: Georgi Popovich and Mila Babicheva. Yuuri finds out that Mila is eighteen years old, and she recently picked something to do with mathematics as her major. Viktor has asked her not to give out any further details, since he himself had revealed that she’s in the same class as Yura.

And, as an aside, about Yura. Yuuri realises with wonderment that their names are incredibly similar, since the full name is Yuri, which is almost indistinguishable in speech. The average Japanese person definitely wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. And, in Russian his own name regularly even gets written as Yuri. He’s not sure that it’s correct, but he never took much notice in the past. Now this unsettling bit of information is churning in his mind.

Yura is fifteen years old, he’s a short genius with a scary intellect, and is already attending university alongside Mila. He was the one that introduced her to Viktor. Yuri had run away from the watchful eye of his professor, who had brought him to St. Petersburg from Moscow, because living with him and his wife was beyond awful. Viktor laughs as he says this, but it makes Yuuri feel somewhat uncomfortable. One time Yura himself calls into the radio show and spends a long time yelling at Viktor for all his teasing. They seem to get on like a house on fire.

The website includes the social media links of all the hosts, and Mila turns out to be quite cute, while Georgi seems a bit too aloof at first glance. Yuuri doesn’t much like his segments either, even though they’re the only ones with a proper format instead of being thought up a minute in advance.

And Viktor… Viktor is _unfairly_ good-looking. He has long pale hair and blue eyes, and an exquisite smile, and overall is entirely devilishly handsome. That level of beauty ought to be illegal. Viktor also turns out to love selfies. Yuuri keeps scrolling through his Instagram and can’t help but gasp.

Viktor has two primary topics of discussion: himself and Yuri. He also like to gossip about Mila and her hockey player boyfriend, whom he doesn’t approve of, and Georgi with his Anechka, whom Viktor also doesn’t approve of.

“Today I was cleaning up the kitchen, you know, washing and drying dishes and so forth, wiping down various surfaces, when in comes this ungrateful child and tracks dirt all over the house. He stomps in his boots right to the fridge, paws at it with his greasy hands and shuffles back out to wherever it was he came from. From hell, maybe? And the thing is, I know Satan and could totally shove this little demon onto him. But I don’t. Something which he clearly doesn’t appreciate. In his muddy boots! Have a song about patience, and don’t piss off your housemates.”

The voice of this artist is once again somewhat strange[3], and the melody is kind of draining as well, so Yuuri finds that he loses himself a little in the resonance of Viktor’s patience and the patience of the girls in the song. 

***

Yuuri mails the promised article excerpt to Lilia and starts pacing his room, occasionally jerking into biting his nails. His anxiety is starting to make him nauseous as he waits for her stern judgement, knowing that he’s probably made mistakes in every possible area.

He’s on his third month in St Petersburg, and everyone whom he talks with bring up the fact that his speech has improved. Yuuri himself does feel that pulling words out of the fog in his head is somewhat less torturous these days. And, it seems, the agonising strain of trying to figure out Russian speech has finally fallen to the wayside. Although his inner voice, speaking in Russian, is turning out to sound just like Viktor’s. But Yuuri’s not against that. That’s no hardship.

His dorm is near the mathematics faculty, he’s not sure exactly what its name is. Every day he watches the endless parade of students dragging their feet to the first and second morning lectures. By the third they’re usually more awake and start to drift more actively out of the buildings. However today is Sunday, and nobody is around. Yuuri suddenly realises with dread that the article he just submitted was several days late, and Lilia will be extremely unhappy with him. Fear fills him, and Yuuri grabs his phone and headphones, throws on a jacket and walks out of his room just in time for someone to run him over. 

That someone rapidly lifts himself off Yuuri, turns around, clucks his tongue with worry and then suddenly declares: 

“Let me hang in your room for a few hours. It’s very important.”

Yuuri lifts his gaze towards the stranger and realises with astonishment that it’s a kid - maybe fifteen or so, no older. Yuuri immediately nods, despite the fact that he was just leaving. He’ll just have to go back into his room. 

The youngster perches on a chair and starts knocking one chunky boot against the chair leg. He’s wearing a leopard-print hoodie, and underneath a shirt with a tiger face. He pulls out a phone with a tiger-print case. In Yuuri’s head the puzzle pieces start locking into place.

“What’s your name?” he asks, and the teenager starts. Gives him a baffled look. Then barks:

“What, are you not Russian?” Yuuri meaningfully raises his eyebrows and glances at his reflection in the mirror. Nope, still Japanese. “Why do you give a fuck what my name is?”

“You’re in my room,” Yuuri reminds him. The teen looks around and somehow seems a bit embarrassed. “I could go and find whoever it is you’re hiding from.”

“Yura,” he says with a sigh. “Don’t give me up to Yakov. He’s already stripping the life out of me. Now he’ll call Viktor, and _he’ll_ start to look for me, the bastard. I need to stay in here at least until evening,” he adds with a progressively more and more plaintive tone.

In his head, Yuuri had now definitively combined the name, leopard print hoodie, general youthful appearance and light hair. And also the name Viktor. Yuuri puts it all together and shakes his head. 

***

“He’s run off,” Viktor informs, and Yuuri glances over at the now shoeless Yuri, currently mercilessly twisting a phone charging cable. “He has private tutoring with the professor on Sundays. And now he’s gone and run off in the middle of a lesson. Professor immediately contacts me, and what have I got to do with it? I’m sitting at work, conversing with all of you. Find the rascal, he tells me. Well, I respect the professor, his wife was my supervisor. So I need to go looking. So, whoever calls in and tells me Yura’s location, I’ll do something nice for you. Surely you all remember what he looks like. A small, cute savage. Have a song while you search.” [4]

Yuuri pulls out one earbud and looks at Yuri. He’s peeling a banana, which he pulled out of god knows where. Yuuri pulls up the website, because Viktor apparently isn’t capable of remembering that he should announce the phone number each time. 

The line is busy. Damn.

Yuuri turns off the radio, grabs his laptop and checks his emails. Lilia’s response is littered with corrections, but on the whole she responded to his work quite positively. He scratches his forehead, adjusts his glasses and makes a start on the comments. 

***

Yura leaves late in the evening. Yuuri, having finished writing, falls back in his chair and realises that he’s alone in the room. The banana peel has been left on the cabinet. Somehow he can’t bring himself to be mad.

“Anime? I tried to watch ‘Naruto’. It was quite boring. I liked ‘Bleach’ more, but my favourite is ‘Natsume Yuujinchou’. It’s so sweet and pure in almost every episode. But I haven’t seen the new season yet. Yes, I have studied Japanese, although I’m not sure why. I’ve been told I have an outrageously bad accent, but I do know Japanese. Mandarin and Korean? No, I haven’t touched those two. My forte is French and English. I knew a girl called Alina once. Less a girl, and more a living flame. I would have married her, if I’d lost my mind somehow, but she’s top on my list. Once she was talking to another friend of mine, Katen’ka, who even knows what about. I wasn’t really listening, don’t remember what was pulling my attention away. Katen’ka is a downright inferno. A total techhead, what was she even doing in the language department?.. Katen’ka was asking about some sort of computer game, what the programming language was. I’m not an expert in this, maybe the question was phrased differently somehow. But there was definitely something there about a game and a programming language. And Alina replies to her - the French language. French programming language. Katen’ka turns to me and gives me this most meaningful look. Well, after she’d finished roaring with laughter, of course. Don’t get me wrong, Alina isn’t stupid, she’s just… blonde. I’m blonde myself, really. But Alina - she was incredible.”

Yuuri snickers at this latest tale from Viktor’s life, for once not related at all to either Yuri or Mila. Viktor knows Japanese, loves Lolo the penguin and Natsume Yuujinchou. Viktor is drop dead gorgeous. Yuuri gets the feeling that Viktor is his next big life mistake. The previous mistake was, of course, starting to learn Russian. He should have just stuck with audio books. But no, he doesn’t like it when someone else reads books for him. Yuuri sighs despairingly.

“Right, next questions... Sci-fi or fantasy? Hmm, it depends on what you mean. Probably fantasy. I dig elves. That’s a total leftover from Orlando Bloom playing Legolas. Why, do you think, I grew out these tresses in the first place?.. Why did I start a radio show instead of a Youtube channel? Because I’m a lover of the romantic. Men or women? My dear friend, dogs or cats? The answer is men and dogs. Happy for them to be in all sorts of combinations, excluding intercourse. And alright, as a reminder, you can put your questions into the ask box on our website and I will answer them. Meanwhile here’s [Polinochka Gagarina for you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQH4-eo8vzo). If I have to choose between Polina and men, I’d have to say Polina.”

Yuuri sighs and googles Polina.

***

He bumps into Yura in Lilia’s office. The languages faculty building is awfully far from the mathematics faculty, and this is rather unexpected. Yura is sitting at a small table, surrounded by a typical student’s mess, and is writing something. Lilia is on the phone, drumming her fingers on the back of a chair.

“Good afternoon,” says Yuuri. Yura looks up, surprised, but Lilia makes him turn back to his notebook. 

“I’m about to call through to this dolt’s young man, to come pick him up,” she quietly mentions, and Yuuri nods. His young man? In what sense? A romantic one?

“Viktor isn’t my boyfriend, don’t make it sound like that!” Yura shrieks in rage. Yuuri chokes on nothing, because this is, indeed…. Too much. Definitely too much. Yep, Yuuri thinks, you are indeed picking up on these sentences correctly. “And he’s not my brother. I’m renting a room from him.”

“Renting for free, because Yakov asked him very nicely,” Liilia coolly retorts. And then it hits Yuuri.

Lilia’s husband is Yakov Feltsman, the famous professor. He’s as much of an expert in his own field of mathematics as Lilia is in languages. And Viktor had mentioned that he had the professor’s wife as a teacher. It was kinda funny. The coincidence of the century.

“Viktor, come here and collect this child. He’s had a squabble with Yakov again. While he’s cooling off I’ve kept Yura busy with English verbs. No, he doesn’t understand a thing about them. So thick-headed. Yes…” Lilia is still talking, when an assistant bursts into the office and blurts out:

“Lanin and Berskiy! They’re-” Lilia immediately jumps from her seat, thrusts the phone into Yuuri’s hands and mutters: 

“Talk to him for me.”

She strides out of the office. Yuuri lifts the phone to his ear with a shaking hand and asks: 

“Hullo?”

“Oh, a new voice. Where did Lilia go?”

“She was urgently called away. Something happened,” Yuuri replies and realises that his voice has started to quaver.

“Oh, are you a foreigner? Your pronunciation is interesting.”

“I’m Japanese,” politely responds Yuuri, although his own pronunciation makes him want to sink completely into the ground. How wretched he sounds. Viktor’s voice, on the other hand, is bewitching.

“ _Really? Very nice, I’ve never had a chance to talk casually to a Japanese person_ ,” Viktor sharply switches into Japanese. And he definitely has an accent, just like he once mentioned. But he still sounds great. As if anything could sully that voice, anyway.

“Please, speak in Russian, I really need the practice,” Yuuri requests. Yura looks at him in disgust and shakes his head. Even from a distance it’s easy to see that he hasn’t got very far in his verb homework.

“Whatever you like, you can call me at any time, I’m ready to practice in any language of the world if you’re going to sound this lovely speaking it,” Yuuri can almost hear the heart emoji in Viktor’s voice. This is silly and embarrassing. When is Lilia coming back? “So you’re studying with Lilia?”

“Yes, she’s helping me.”

“She’s the best in the business. You could scarcely find anyone who could teach this better than her. I do miss the days of being her student. I see her so rarely now. But I do plan to meet her today. Is Yura writing out his verbs over there?”

Yura is engrossed in his phone. Yuuri sighs and tells on him:

“No.”

“A shame.”

Yuuri laughs, and in that moment an angry Lilia sweeps back in and grabs back her phone. Yura tries to make it look like he wasn’t just texting someone. Yuuri lets out his breath, places the corrected, printed copy of his article on her desk, bows low and runs straight out.

***

“Today I got to talk to a sweet Japanese man. His voice sounded like a songbird’s, and I became so enchanted with him that I didn’t even ask his name. He had an accent, but he sounded so delightful on the phone. Ah, Yura, my little Cupid, you should get hung up at Lilia’s more often so that I could have an excuse to call her again and again and listen to his voice.” 

Yuuri chokes on the cottage cheese which he had decided to eat instead of a proper dinner. He coughs and can’t stop, struggling to breathe, and he thinks he’s gonna die. It’s terrible.

He somehow manages to pull himself together, start breathing again and return to the real world, where in his headphones Viktor is continuing to rhapsodise.

“In my head I’m referring to him as Yuzuru Hanyu. Because Yuzuru is Japanese, because Yuzuru is a hell of a cute Japanese man, and because I love the voice of my new angel and I love figure skating.” 

Yuuri starts considering his options for suicide to escape this embarrassment. He wants to call in and request that Viktor stop saying such things, but actually calling and asking would be even worse. He can’t imagine that his squeaking could have left such an impression, most likely there was some kind of problem with Lilia’s old phone that made Viktor hear him incorrectly. So no way.

“I’ll load up some Gazmanov. No, Mila, don’t give me that horrible look, I am in the mood to play Ice and Flame, and I _will_ play [Ice and Flame.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOwBrl0W8lM)”

***

Viktor starts the morning show in his unique style: the music gets interrupted and a heart-wrenching sneeze is heard. How does this poor radio station develop a following at all at this rate? 

“This morning I woke up Yura at five and asked him, what is the likelihood that my crush is a listener of my broadcast? Yura flipped me off; someone needs to wash that kid’s mouth out with soap for the words he used, the little savage. But then he asked for details, starting laughing far too loudly and declared that there was no chance. I’m certain that he didn’t even try to do a proper calculation. And then he announced that he knows where to find my Yuzuru. And that’s it, no further info. He just went back to sleep. Why is he like this to me?” 

Yuuri is engulfed in a wave of panic. Because Yura does, in fact, know exactly where to find him. Actually, if Viktor puts his mind to it, he would quickly realise that he can also find out from Lilia. Although it’s no guarantee that she’ll tell him. But it’s certainly possible. Yuuri starts pacing the room, hysterically bumping into sharp corners, and then looks out the window and freezes. 

Why would Viktor want to find that out anyway? And if he did find out, why would he come here? That’s nonsensical. They only ever talked once on the phone. Everything will be fine, nothing bad will happen. 

An undercurrent of hope continues to flutter in his heart.

“I want to hear what he sounds like when he speaks Japanese. When I tried to talk to him in his language, he responded in Russian. I want to hear how he says my name. Pronouncing a name is quite an intimate process, don’t you agree? Let’s discuss. Do you like how your name sounds? Do you prefer nicknames? How do your closest and dearest address you? With you is Piter FM, and I’m Viktor Nikiforov.”

Yuuri touches his lips and unthinkingly whispers:

“Viktor…” 

***

Yuuri stands at the door of the lecture theatre where Yakov is teaching and is very nervous. He’s here on an errand from Lilia to hand over some folder. At any moment he could bump into Yura. And Yura means only one thing - trouble. He doesn’t even know why he feels that’s the case. 

“Why aren’t you going in? Professor Feltsman doesn’t scold latecomers.” 

Yuuri flinches and turns towards the familiar voice. Behind his shoulder stands an innocently smiling Mila. Yuuri gulps. Yuuri starts sweating.

“I’m here from his wife, on a personal matter,” he breathes out and pauses. Mila’s eyes widen. Her mouth forms a neat “O” and she thoroughly looks him up and down. Yuuri realises that she’s just figured out who he is. 

“You wouldn’t happen to be the one who talked to Viktor from her phone?” she asks. And Yuuri - like a fool - can’t manage to feign ignorance. He’s such a fool, and yet he can’t do ignorance. Great. That’s why he nods and bites his lip. “Oh my god. You really are super cute. Say something else.”

“Something else?” repeats Yuuri, and Mila squeals. The desk clerk in the office at the end of the hall gives them a sharp look. 

“Viktor will die of jealousy when he finds out that I’ve met you. He’s completely talked my ears off about you. He’s talked all of Piter’s ears off from his show. By the way, you should give us a listen, we’re cool,” she gives him a sunny smile. Suddenly a bell rings, sounding more like a death rattle. “I’ll drive him so crazy with this. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Yuuri Katsuki.”

“I’m Mila. Piter FM, look us up!”

She runs off, and Yuuri faces the stampede of students on his own. Yakov, save him. 

***

Viktor is pushing himself in the evening show, he’s practically falling to pieces at this point. He and Mila are co-hosting this segment, and they don’t even have a decent topic for discussion, if you don’t count Viktor’s fevered ramblings. Yuuri sits in a cafe near the dorms and picks at his fluffy “Leningrad” cake, listening in as if his life depends on it. Mila is teasing Viktor so much that it’s almost pitiful. 

“Being a student is the best time of any person’s life. Unless you’re in med school. We should exile people like you, Mila, to that faculty.” 

“Don’t be a drama queen, Viktor,” Mila’s voice is sweet and relaxed. “You could just stop by our building yourself and try to search out Katsuki.” 

“Can you all believe it? His name is Katsuki,” Viktor somehow lusciously wraps his tongue around the name in a way that makes it sound obscene, and Yuuri buries his face in his hands. Oh god, what did he do to deserve this? “More than anything in the world I’d love to talk to him one more time. I’ve completely fallen in love with his voice. Is it remotely fair that it’s Mila that gets to meet him?..” 

“You wouldn’t even figure out that it’s actually him,” she laughs. “You’d overlook him. He’s quite unassuming at first glance.”

“And on a second glance?”

“On the second, he’s a cinnamon roll.”

Yuuri whimpers in unison with Viktor, and their combined noises are full of despair. Nope, he’s physically incapable of taking any more of this. He yanks the headphones out of his phone and scrambles out of the cafe. He needs fresh air. He needs to breathe in the St. Petersburg air… Cool down in a spring shower… 

The skies open up with a deluge of water, with Yuuri right in the middle of the mayhem. Viktor, it seems, actually did really like his voice. Viktor wants to talk to him. An odd sort of determination awakes in Yuuri - even if Viktor stops liking him later, even if Viktor turns away from him, even if Viktor is just making fun of him... 

Yuuri dials the number of the radio station which he’s already memorised off by heart and waits. His hands are shaking, while the phone dials through with great difficulty, as if it’s teasing him. 

“Yes? You’re live on air! Please introduce yourself.”

Yuuri stops breathing for a second, looks up at the sky, closes his eyes and says:

“Yuuri, my name is Yuuri. Katsuki is the family name.”

And, before Viktor has any chance to react, Yuuri hangs up. His heart is trying to burst its way out of his chest, and he genuinely has no idea why he just did all that. He quickly turns off his phone and jolts into a run.

***

On Thursday Yuuri finds Yuri at his door with a ninth grade English textbook, and an explanatory note from Lilia. Yura can do mathematics and cannot do anything else. Viktor, who is Yura’s usual tutor, had gone off the deep end and was spending entire days hanging off the microphone in his studio and thinking up odes to the ridiculous accented voice of a certain Yuuri Katsuki, and hence Yuuri Katsuki should be so gracious as to assist Yura. 

Yuuri Katsuki lets him in and honestly tries to teach him, but Yuri is so passive, so entirely unwelcoming, that all attempts end in nothing. Although Yuuri is stubborn. He even confiscates Yuri’s phone - he had tried to start texting someone in the middle of the lesson. 

“Your voice isn’t nice at all,” Yura declares to his face. And hey! Nobody had ever insisted otherwise. Except, maybe, Viktor? But Viktor talks at a speed of three hundred words a second and doesn’t know how to run a radio show. “And you’re Japanese.” 

That last bit is spat out as if Yuuri is some freakazoid. That’s almost upsetting, but then Yuuri remembers that in front of him is a cute little savage™ and lets it pass. 

“And what bothers you about that?”

Yura scowls, then just shrugs his shoulder. 

“Nothing. You’re alright.”

The English tenses remain an unconquered stronghold, even after an hour. There’s a knock on the door. 

“That’s to pick me up,” says Yura, and for some reason, the thought doesn’t even enter his head that it’s possible for that to be someone other than Lilia. 

Viktor is at the threshold.

Roll credits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs played by Viktor:  
> 1\. Any song from Panic! At The Disco[return to text]  
> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UColJTBTSGqaaZr5NOk5r3Pg>
> 
> 2\. Glucosa - Yura  
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc-4YyxoqW0>
> 
> 3\. B-2 - Devushki [Ladies][return to text]  
> [Content warning on the music video for nudity, kidnapping and maybe implied sexual violence.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlVm23FkV3s)
> 
> 4\. Musicians of Bremen - Song of the Private Investigator [return to text]  
> [It’s the theme song of a private eye from an absolutely classic Soviet musical cartoon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N9PCPW2fpY)
> 
> 5\. Polina Gagarina - Shagai [Walk on]  
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQH4-eo8vzo>
> 
> 6\. Oleg Gazmanov - Lyod i Plamya [Ice and Flame]  
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOwBrl0W8lM>
> 
> Translator’s notes part 2!
> 
> “Great and powerful” is a classic phrase referring to the Russian language. By Russians, of course. We’re very proud of our language.
> 
> “апрель-апрель, на дворе капель” = “aprel’-aprel’, na dvore kapel’ ” = “April-April, outdoors is dripping.” A line from a kids’ poem about the snow melting in spring.
> 
> Dura = dummy or idiot. Feminine version of the word durak.
> 
> Tanechka is the diminutive of Tanya/Tatiana.
> 
>  
> 
> Tumblr


	2. words, which are typically not said in Japanese

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translator’s notes: I’m not a poet, but I think I’m safe since the other characters refer to Viktor’s poetry as terrible. Enjoy!

Yuuri ends up at Viktor’s apartment for the first time an entire month after they meet each other. And it’s not as if he hasn’t been invited before this point. He has, and often: during in-person meetings, on air, over the phone (sometimes over the phone _while_ live on air), via Lilia and via Yuri. Any time Viktor called him while on air, Yuuri immediately hung up on the call and didn’t even reply to texts after that, because that was crossing all reasonable boundaries. 

Viktor turned out to be relentless - frankly, he was completely overwhelming. He spoke a lot and with great enthusiasm, and the worst of it was that he kept talking about Yuuri, uncaring of whether Yuuri was present or not - he would interrupt Mila in the middle of her show and just start talking. And Yuuri - like any reasonable person, trying to avoid drawing attention to themselves - was suffering. He did actually like Viktor a lot. And, judging by all of this, it was mutual. But the fact that everyone around them was aware of this too - this was something that Yuuri definitely did _not_ like.

Their relationship had leapt into motion, taking off like a rocket. Viktor was full-on courting him like some sort of aggressive buck in rut. That was the exact description that Lilia had employed and suggested that they slow it down and take a breather, or else their feelings would burn out after only a few weeks. Yuuri wasn’t exactly in any hurry himself; he had spent so long quietly nurturing his timid feelings of love towards Viktor, and the recent developments now left him feeling like a deer in the headlights. 

That’s why he never took Viktor up on his invitations, and when he finally did end up at his apartment, Viktor wasn’t actually there. Instead, there was Yura, whom Yuuri had in fact turned up for. Yura greets him at the door, lazily looks him up and down and smirks. 

“You can leave your shoes on,” he says and heads into the depths of the apartment. “Viktor will kiss the dirt, if it’s from _your_ feet.” 

Yuuri takes his shoes off anyway. The apartment has three rooms - two bedrooms and a living room combined with a kitchen. Yura flops onto the couch, near which is a coffee table buried in notebooks and textbooks. Yuuri wraps his arms around himself and looks around nervously. It’s very light and there are a lot of books, clean but not coldly sterile, just giving the appearance that neat people live here. Everything is very modern. 

“Viktor renovated a few years ago,” says Yura, tugging a striped cushion towards himself. “I saw the photos before the grand makeover. It was a granny’s flat.”

Yuuri isn’t a local, but he’s aware that three room apartments practically in the centre of the city have never been cheap. The granny must have lived quite well. 

“He’s definitely not coming?” asks Yuuri and shudders at the sound of his own voice. He came here to work on English, because Yuri’s courses require a significantly higher level knowledge of at least one foreign language than he currently possesses. Even Yakov was unable to force any flexibility - he had already pushed for a lot of leeway in the rules, for them to accept a boy who hadn’t properly finished high school. Lilia is more worried about this requirement than she should be, but Yuuri is happy to be of assistance, even if it’s just as a listening ear. He wants to repay the favour as she’s already done so much more for him than he hoped.

“Well as long as nobody tells him that you’re here,” Yura drawls, “he won’t be back until evening.” 

It’s currently one in the afternoon, and Yuuri relaxes. He’s scared of Viktor, scared of his pushiness, and each time they meet is a battle. Yuuri valiantly tries each time to shield his heart, his reason, his personal space bubble and his dignity. But being close to Viktor makes this exceedingly difficult. It’s far safer to love him at a distance. 

“Ok. Then let’s continue from where we last left off?..” 

Suddenly Yura, lazily sprawled on the couch at this point, jerks up towards him and hovers there, glaring at him so darkly that everything in Yuuri’s chest clenches in horror - it’s a completely animalistic visage. Yuuri backs up, and Yura hisses at his face: 

“You don’t even like him, you recoil from him all the time, don’t even let him touch you. Do you even know how wound up he is? He’s losing it, writing love poems… Nikiforov! Writing poems. It’s disgusting to look at. He’s completely cuckoo over you, and here you are playing hard to get, not even wanting to see him. You should leave him alone, he deserves better.”

Yuuri flounders through this harsh accusatory rant and his thoughts keep distractedly circling back to the love poems. Yura snorts, sinks into the couch again and opens his textbook. His rage is practically tangible, ice cold and spiky. 

***

Yuuri wanders into Lilia’s office towards the end of the day. Their relationship is becoming progressively more informal, as far as that’s possible with Lilia anyway. She is always composed, calm and almost a tiny bit gruff. This time she is drinking something out of a flask and absent-mindedly looking straight ahead. 

“You finished with Yuri?” Sometimes she refers to everyone by their full names, occasionally even with patronymics and surnames, but that happens rarely. Yuuri nods and sits across from her. Apparently he looks completely out of sorts, because Lilia extracts a shot glass from somewhere and pours some of her flask into it. “Drink.” 

Yuuri doesn’t want to, but obediently pours the burning liquid down his throat. He almost never drinks, and doesn’t know anything about alcohol, so he’s completely unable to figure out what it is that he just consumed. 

“What sort of nonsense did he spout off to you? That boy deserves to have his tongue torn out,” sighs Lilia. 

Yuuri grimaces as he finishes the drink. He couldn’t do it in a single gulp, it’s too bitter and scorching. During the day he had listened to Viktor, who had been playing sad songs about love and complaining about Yuuri being cold to him. Yuuri feels like some sort of scoundrel. And he’s still afraid that this is some kind of amusement for Viktor, and as soon as he gets bored he’ll stop. Meanwhile Yuuri will end up completely in love with him, drawn in so much that he wouldn’t be able to live without him. Viktor is simply too perfect for Yuuri (if you don’t count his pushiness and complete disregard for personal space). 

“He said that Viktor deserves someone better than me. And that Viktor is writing poems.” 

“He is,” agrees Lilia. “He brings them to me for editing. He’s friends with more philologists than you could shake a stick at, and yet he brings them to me.” She closes the flask and puts it away into her desk drawer. “I’ll show you, if you want.” 

Yuuri does want. He’s ashamed, because this desire reeks of selfishness and self-indulgence. Lilia searches out some uneven notebook pages and thrusts them under his nose. Viktor’s handwriting is a scrawl, but still possible to make out with some effort. A lot of effort. 

_I throw myself into love’s deep blue limit._  
_I was a captain, a frigate_  
_And all the crew._  
_You were an iceberg, reefs, a cliff,_  
_A score of undersea lariat._

“Isn’t a lariat a rope?” asks Yuuri. 

“Yes, it’s a rope. It’s a metaphor,” she watches Yuuri with pity. Well, he probably isn’t advanced enough to fully understand poetry in Russian. “Although the metaphor is clumsy at best.” 

_You’re an unwritten love affair,_  
_A quill in hand, a vapour, trickster,_  
_You’re that springtime whirlwind twister_  
_While I’m a mindless scribbler._

“It’s like he was just listing random rhymes at this point,” snorts Lilia and grumpily raps the last line with her finger, “a mindless scribbler indeed.” 

Yuuri’s heart starts to beat out of control, and he wants to melt into nothing or rush off, to end up far away from Lilia’s gaze immediately. Because these poems were dedicated to _him_ , they’re addressed to him. His cheeks flush red. Nobody has written him poems before, has never confessed their love and shouted it out loud over the airwaves. While Viktor - Viktor is doing all those things. 

_I was a madman, you were the light,_  
_You answered only no, though I burned so bright,_  
_I crawled to you, but you were high above._

“I haven’t been on good terms with rhymes since childhood,” she walks away, no longer interrupting his reading, and stills near the window. Yuuri suddenly wonders, did Yakov write her any poetry? She must have been fetching in her youth. She was probably courted by so many at the time, and yet she chose a mathematician. 

_I was a car, you a chauffeur,_  
_You start the engine with ardour,_  
_In my chest the tender splash_  
_Of petrol poured by your own hand._

_You sleep so sweetly, but I’m a fowl,_  
_I’ll bring to wake your tender soul._  
_The essence of these verse I’ll pin,_  
_I’ll pull you into depths of sin,_  
_Then loving others you can’t begin,_  
_So you don’t even think to try._

__Yuuri presses the poems against his chest, so poorly written yet heartfelt. Viktor is always heartfelt with him, always honest - his soul splayed wide open. Yuuri, on the other hand, feels like a murk which can bog down anything. Both Viktor’s lovely voice, and his joyful radio broadcasts, and everything around him to boot. Everything is likely to vanish in the dark quagmire called Katsuki Yuuri._ _

__***_ _

__“I had a friend once called Dasha. Well, not really a friend, more an acquaintance. She, like most humanities majors, found that opposites attract, specifically in this case to an engineer several years older than her; she married him and loved to bitch about how hard her life was. She was eighteen, and yet she bitched like an old woman. She wrote poetry that I didn’t like at all, although I never told her that. I, in general, didn’t tell people things I didn’t like about them, I always used to avoid conflict. It’s only now that I’m always saying things to people’s faces without sugarcoating or compromise. Anyway, Dasha thought Pushkin was a relic of the past. Yet I still think that there is no poet more genius than him. The simpler you say something, the clearer you’ll be understood, isn’t that right? I wouldn’t be opposed to learning to say things in a way that would be clearly understood.”_ _

__Yuuri listens to Viktor as the clock moves past nine in the evening, and his eyes start to droop. A regular sleep schedule is a lovely thing. Yuuri does his best to keep it up, because he knows from experience that any deviation can end up wreaking havoc._ _

__“I feel like I’ve gone overboard with the simple words. And writing poems is such a hassle... Where do people even find rhymes?.. Alright, have some Dasha Suvorova, since I’m obviously not sleeping until dawn today.”_ _

__Viktor’s voice is so wistful and melancholy. Yuuri bites his lip and decisively dials his number. At the moment there is a song playing, and then it will be followed by an ad, so they have plenty of time to talk. Although Yuuri has no idea what to say, as per usual. Typical Yuuri. His tongue ties itself into knots, and he’s barely able to pull out half-syllables._ _

__“Yuuri?” Viktor asks, surprised. Well, of course. It’s always been Viktor who calls, Viktor who says something first. Always Viktor. “What’s wrong, sunshine?”_ _

__Yuuri dies every time at how easily such endearments flow from another person’s lips towards him, sweet nothings that make fireworks explode in his chest._ _

__“Would you like me to drop in?” he asks unexpectedly. And realises - he does want to drop in to that stupid studio, to Viktor sitting there at midnight and his microphones. He wants to see him, to embrace him. He wants to insist that he play a happy song, so that Viktor starts smiling and joking around, instead of bringing up the most depressing memories of his life._ _

__“It’s already late,” says Viktor cautiously._ _

__“I’ll take a taxi.”_ _

__If it were in reverse, Yuuri would tell him no - he’s not important enough to justify rushing off like this late at night. He would turn the visit down and then pine, thinking about missed opportunities._ _

__“Ok, come over,” but unlike him, Viktor has a healthy amount of self-indulgence, and Yuuri is glad for that at this moment, pulling on his jeans and hunting around for a sweater. On the other end of the line Viktor is still quietly breathing, and Yuuri thinks about how silly it is that neither of them has hung up yet. “Yuuri?”_ _

__“Yes, Viktor?”_ _

__“I love saying your name.”_ _

__“Yes,” says Yuuri, clutching at his heart, because he fears it will burst out at any moment. “Me… too.”_ _

__“You love to say your own name?”_ _

__Yuuri stabs the end call button, grabs his headphones and dials the booking number for the taxi. God damn it, he really should have stuck to listening to audio books._ _

__***_ _

__While Yuuri waits for his ride, and then crosses the dark city, Viktor plays Potap i Nastya, and threatens to play something worse if anyone complains about the old stuff. The song is called “Cry me a river”, and Yuuri swears that there’s another song like that, but it’s not like he’s going to call and be upset about it._ _

__Viktor is sitting with headphones on and is talking about something - it’s not audible through the glass, and Yuuri has already put his phone away. Viktor is wearing a grey tracksuit, his hair pulled back into a ponytail, and he looks so tired and so beautiful._ _

__“Hi,” whispers Viktor, having put on a music track and closed the door behind him. Yuuri looks at him and can’t tear his eyes away._ _

__“I like your name,” he blurts out the thoughts he’s been holding back. And says clearly, cleanly, in Russian, “Viktor. Viktor,” and then lurches into Japanese, in which the name sounds distorted but no less pretty, “Vikutoru.”_ _

__“Oh, Yuuri,” Viktor grabs his hand, pulls it up to his lips and kisses it. Yuuri’s thoughts scatter. “You have that same look right now.”_ _

__“What look?”_ _

__“The one you had when I first saw you,” Viktor explains without clearing anything up, and Yuuri frowns. “Like you’re about to faint.”_ _

__Gods. His tongue is stuck, all he can do is shake his head mutely. All thoughts in Russian have fled his head. There’s not a single coherent thought left behind, in general, actually. Viktor chuckles sheepishly. Viktor isn’t throwing himself in bold enthusiasm at Yuuri for once. But he’s still holding Yuuri’s hand in his warm ones, and it’s so nice._ _

__“I saw your poems. You called yourself a rooster.”_ _

__“Hmmm,” Viktor nonchalantly shrugs his shoulders. “Mother Nature never thought that someone with my credentials would need to try my hand at poems as a wooing method. Never gave me any talent for it.”_ _

__Viktor is so vain, it’s almost disgusting. Viktor is so self-assured - Yuuri wishes he could steal some crumbs of it for himself. Viktor shakily looks him in the eyes and nervously asks:_ _

__“You didn’t like them?”_ _

__“Viktor… I…” Well sure, confessing your love is ten thousand times harder, if you’ve already been confessed to in a myriad different ways and you haven’t even once._ _

__“You didn’t like them,” states Viktor and scratches at the back of his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something else.” He looks at the clock, then at the empty studio. “Ah, forgive me, I need another half hour to finish the show. Will you wait here? Or will you go home?”_ _

__That’s ridiculous, because Yuuri just got here. Yuuri had uprooted himself, dragged himself out of his warm bed. In Japan you wouldn’t talk about these sorts of things. Anyone would tell you that. Love is a very serious thing. In Japan it’s accepted to not bring it up so directly. But Viktor is Russian and Viktor doesn’t understand. Viktor knows Japanese. Why doesn’t Viktor realise?_ _

__Viktor’s shoulders droop as he clutches the microphone. His eyes are sad. Yuuri thinks that it was a bad idea to fall in love with a Russian man._ _

__He enters the studio, firmly pushes Viktor away from the microphone and says in Japanese:_ _

__“ _My name is Yuuri Katsuki. And I’m in love with Viktor Nikiforov._ ”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An addition about tea, written in the comments as a response to a reader:
> 
> Viktor throws teabags into plastic cups and says somewhat apologetically: 
> 
> “Sorry, it’s cheap tea. Mila bought it. She’s a student, and those only come in two modes: blowing all their cash in one day, and then surviving off instant noodles. Mila bought these during the latter.”
> 
> Yuuri smiles uncertainly; for the late night broadcast the music runs as a long stream, with occasional breaks for ads, so for the moment they can be together without distractions. It’s cosy in the studio, the space is very small but what more do they need? Viktor dilutes the tea with cool water from a bottle. Yuuri eyes it suspiciously. 
> 
> “Why?” 
> 
> “It’s too hot!” Viktor scoffs in reply. “You don’t want yours watered down?” and reached towards his cup. Yuuri quickly yanks it to one side. Viktor just shrugs his shoulders in acceptance. Some chocolate-covered marshmallows appear on the table. 
> 
> Yuuri tries the tea - it’s truly foul, in the way that only cheap hot teabag tea can be. His tongue throbs from the scald, and tears well in his eyes. Yuuri carefully puts down the cup and breathes out to the side, squinting. Viktor doesn’t notice, thankfully. 
> 
> “A poodle,” he says. 
> 
> “A poodle what?” Yuuri doesn’t understand.
> 
> “We need to get a dog, I’ve always wanted a poodle. We’ll call her Makkachin. She’ll tear up Yurka’s house slippers.”
> 
> Yuuri reaches for the bottle of cold water. Viktor watches him with tender adoration. 
> 
> “Fine,” says Yuuri. “A poodle it is.” 
> 
> _______________________________________
> 
> Translator’s notes:
> 
> I ended up writing that Viktor knows more philologists than “you can shake a stick at”, but the original phrase used by Lilia was along the lines of “enough to pickle in jars and eat in winter instead of cucumbers”. Really making me nostalgic for Russian homemade pickles here!


End file.
